The Temple
by Ooffo Rancoofsis
Summary: The novel Tarkin introduces the idea of a Sith shrine built some 6000 years before the movies existing underneath the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. What's up with that?


To My Kind Editor:

As you know, I have been continuing my research on the subject of Sith History, and lately I have been looking into possible connections between them and the ancient Jedi, as well as their connection to much more ancient cults. I believe that I have been, for the most part, successful. However, as of late I have discovered a series of documents whose contents are frankly quite disturbing. I have sent a copy of this particular manuscript to you as I do so for my most important finds in order to safeguard knowledge in the event of my untimely demise.

I came across this story during my research in the ancient Petrax Historic Quarter on Coruscant, found in the archives of an ancient, but still operational, library. These kindly folk had held onto a copy of this document, likely copied from a pre-existing document, for centuries. As usual, there is the possibility that this could be a forgery, but I do not believe that this is the case. Indeed, the professional markings appear to be genuine meaning that this copy was preserved faithfully, but it is unknown if it could have been copied from a still older forgery. I will look into this and if I ever include this information in my official research, I will send you a few pages of commentary, most likely. However, I just wanted to put this out there- just in case.

If we are to trust the document's original author, due to context clues, I date the events told to have taken place circa. 4,990 Years Before the Battle of Yavin. If you are aware of any information which could resolve this mystery, please contact me. However, due to… circumstances, I believe that it would be safe to use only the most secure communication channels when communicating in the future.

Sincerely,

* * *

It happened around twenty-five years ago, back when I was a wee apprentice, about a decade after the Hyperspace Conflict, when I was only about twenty years old. I was training to be a Jedi Knight, specifically, I wished to become a proficient Jedi historian, like my acquaintance Odan-Urr.

I was surveying the ancient levels of Coruscant. Specifically, my master was assigned the task of choosing a location suitable for the construction of a new Jedi training academy which was to be built somewhere on Coruscant's surface. Despite our desire for Jedi to take part in politics as little as possible, we wished to choose a location strong in the Force and not too far away from the Senate building, and so we began exploring the Petrax Quarter in earnest, desiring to find a suitable location. However, I was unprepared for the eldritch horrors that I would be facing that day.

It all started when my master and I chose to split up, and so I was stuck wandering the cyclopean labyrinth all alone. Now, the Petrax Quarter is one of the oldest sections in all of Coruscant, some even say that it was the first place paved over with skyscrapers. It is so old, in fact, that even the origin of the name has been lost to history. And, like all of Coruscant, it is deep in history, very, very, deep. On some planets, such as Kuat, Anaxes, or Corellia, you can almost _feel_ the history and each planet has its own distinct flavor.

I step foot on Corellia and am immediately greeted by the spirit of adventure and exploration that drove humans to explore the stars; I step foot on Anaxes and feel the spirit of hope and resolution that drove the ancient Azure Empire to keep fighting alien invaders in the face of the possible extinction of humanity. Each world is alive, likely because each world is _preserved_. But Coruscant? Coruscant is dead. This is of course paradoxical. Coruscant is a planet that is very strong in the Force due to the throbbing pulses of a trillion hearts, but it in many ways lacks the spirit that is found on other ancient worlds. If Anaxes and Corellia are like middle-aged main sequence stars, old but still brightly shining, Coruscant is like a white dwarf, still bright and hot, but lacking and spent.

I think what has happened is that Coruscant is so old that the bustling lives coming in and out of existence, coming on and off the world, form a melting pot. As one skyscraper is demolished to make room for another, each spirit of the age passes into the abyss, leaving nothing but a confused blurr.

However, there are some areas of Coruscant in which the ancient architecture is preserved, and, in many ways, the ancient spirits are also preserved, but, like the buildings, this spirit is not alive, but gradually decaying into a spectre of what it once was. This is what the Petrax Quarter is like. Coruscant is a mummy in which the dead can seen underneath a lifelike surface.

At first, the cyclopean sector was like any other on Coruscant, with tall buildings complete with penthouses on the top, cheap tourist attractions and strip malls on the main levels, and tenement homes and slums below. Below even the pauper flats is the Coruscant underworld, which takes up most, or at least half, of all existing levels. Nobody really goes there unless one is really desperate or really dumb, for down there is where the drug-processors, sentient-trafficking rings, and strange cults are located, but more than that, it is a place of the strange and the unknown. Down there are beasts such as corridor ghouls and granite slugs which have never seen the light of day, but more frightening are the sentient bests, the Cthons and Coruscanti Ogres who are rumored to be devolved humans subjected to millenia in darkness.

I held a map of the area, but I trusted the Force to guide me, and guide me it did. I used a speeder to tour the upper levels until I felt something pulling me down. I didn't, and still don't, know what it was, but I was curious and wished to investigate. I landed by speeder and walked down to the lower levels. It was around noon, but as I descended, more and more light was filtered out. I did not want to go all the way down to the very bottom, mainly because I did not wish to become a meal for the previously mentioned horrors, so I continued to walk along the mid levels. I occasionally employed a series of mind tricks in order to slip past the citizens of these lower levels, and so I was unmolested.

As I walked, I noticed that the style of architecture seemed to change. Many of the buildings appeared to have been built long before the ancient Hundred Year Darkness. I could tell as before the Darkness, many of the buildings were more ornate, whereas modern buildings are much more simple and utilitarian. There are many reasons for this. Primarily, as you build higher, decoration and style become less practical, but also, after the wars and economic hardship brought on by the Darkness, people just couldn't afford to expand in the same way. In many ways, it was like stepping back in time. Back to an ancient and forgotten age.

I kept walking and eventually came across a series of small courtyards. Apparently these green spaces were part of the ancient Coruscant cityscape and while the heightened buildings certainly challenged their existence, for whatever reason they were never paved over. It was here, in one of these semi-dark greenhouses, that I met him. The man was wearing a trench coat and a large brimmed hat which covered his face. He was very slim, like a skeleton, and from what I could see of his skin, it was ghostly white.

He spoke in a soft, but hollow voice. He said that he saw me come down here, and that he knew that I felt the same way that he did. He said that if one ventures into the underlevels, it is like stepping into the past, sort of like going to a funeral and witnessing the greatest hits of the deceased. I, of course, agreed, but I could not help but getting the feeling that something was off about this whole situation. I felt him in the Force, and the Force flowed around and through him, like an autumn breeze, but for all its worth, I could not get a hold of him or glean any information about this mysterious stranger. However, back then I was an apprentice, and was not yet aware of the trickery he was employing.

I told him that I was just a surveyor, looking around the lower levels. He smiled and offered to give me a tour of the area in exchange for some food, nothing much, he just wished to grab a bite after he showed me around. I thought that it was a great deal, after all, here is a homeless local offering his services, and he seemed fairly affable as well. I did strike me that he could be leading me into a trap, but this did not concern me. After all, I was a Jedi, and even a padawan can anticipate and counter most thugs.

He showed me around, and then we went lower. Again, it seemed as if we stepped back in time. Now we had descended so deep that most light had already filtered out and we were forced to use portable light sources. Many of the homes and storefronts on this lower level were collapsed and filled with rubble, but the historical value still seeped through. As I cast my light around, I stared in amazement at the buildings, some of which were over seven-thousand years old! And they were wonderfully preserved! These homes and shops were mostly made of crumbling permacrete, but I could still make out symbols and glyphs from the time that the Pius Dea cult ruled the Galaxy. They were that terrible cult that took over the upper echelons of the Republic so long ago and turned it into a theocracy which waged war against various alien races and heretric sects. There were ancient hieroglyphs, totems, and statues dedicated to the Goddess and various Pius Dea holy sages.

As we walked, he told me about the history of the place. He told me legends about what it was like to live under the Pius Dea, and also about the various Neo-Dea cults that occasionally pop up in the underworld. I was surprised that there were still adherents to such a long forgotten, and often despised, religion, and so I asked about it. He responded that the cults had none of the finesse or flourish of the original, and that they were often joined by low-lifes simply as a fraternity, often to perform obscene and orphic rituals and sacrifices in the darkness. However, he said, there was one cult that emerged about a thousand years back. This cult was the only one that had the power and majesty of the original.

I asked him how such a cult could have been so recent. He responded that it had been the first group to fuse the teachings of the Pius Dea with the teachings of a people known as the Sith, which paradoxically led to a rejection of most of their anti-alien teachings while retaining their most horrible cultic rites. This was incredible and difficult to believe. I did not know that the galaxy was even aware of the Sith people so long ago, and so at first I did not believe it. However, I then stepped on something which broke upon my step. I stooped over and picked up a shattered lightsaber hilt. It appeared to be an old Jedi make, the type dating back to the Darkness or not long after, but it was impossible to tell its age for sure. I tried to sense echoes of the Force still imbued in the hilt, but it was cold and dead. Clearly it had been resting undisturbed for centuries. I asked him what was the meaning of this find.

As we walked further down, he told me a story. About a thousand years ago, a mysterious Lord of the Sith came into known space. She was known as Darth Vahl. Her followers called themselves Vahla, which translates as the 'slaves of Vahl' or something like that, and were said to have been tall and slender humans with slightly red or dark tan skin. They were descended from a monsterous fusion of human and Sith blood whose descendants evolved into a sub-hybrid species over time. However, these hybrid people were dispelled from the Sith homeworld and forced to migrate off into known space. The Vahla worshiped their leader Darth Vahl, believing her to be an incarnation of an eldritch being known as the Soulworm, and called her the Harbinger of Chaos.

They conquered the Core planet of Ambria, and set up a settlement there. They then began to spread their teaching to others, and dark side welding cults began to spring up based on their teachings. Darth Vahl made her way to Coruscant. There she somehow became identified by still active Neo-Dea fanatics as being the embodiment of Onrai, an arcane name of the Goddess of the Pius Dea. This cult became powerful until the Jedi sensed them. Jedi armies swarmed the Coruscant underworld and engaged in a lengthy shadow war with the cultists, until at last Darth Vahl flead to Ambria. The Jedi pursued her, and they were all anihilated there.

I could not believe such an incredible tale, as I had never been taught it in my studies. Why would the Jedi omit teaching about such an important conflict that happened only a thousand years ago? I did not know, but I demanded proof. Then, we entered the remains of an ancient Pius Dea temple. The floor was littered with bones and lightsaber hilts. He showed me the engravings on the walls, the rituals and sacrifices made to the Vain Goddess Onrai incarnate in Vahl. Upon the walls were murals depicting Jedi being drained of their life force while others were tortured. Another scene depicted the Jedi bowing down and worshiping Vahl. A final scene depicted what would happen if Jedi did not convert- they were ripped apart and their Force-sensitive blood was drunk by the new Jedi converts in a hideous act of initiation. Then, Vahl or one of their high priests would eat the still-beating Jedi heart.

I felt nauseous and wanted to go home, but he led me deeper into the cyclopean tunnels. As we went deeper, we emerged into a structure built long before the Republic rose to power. He claimed that it was the remains of an 'Urban Monad,' a towering structure built by an unknown alien race for the purpose of housing the early human species. How or why they got to Coruscant was unknown. I was aware of their existence, but only in passing thanks to my pre-republic historical studies, but what I was not aware of was the carvings and murals on its walls. They depicted the ancient human goddess Onrai, or at least a precursor as the symbols and glyphs were almost identical, but these drawings were much more feral and were obviously carved in the ancient cave-human style. The same Goddess worshiped by the Pius Dea and the monstrous Neo-Dea was worshiped by ancient humanity!

Going further, I saw pictures of several divine figures. There was an ancient idiot god being ensnared by serpents and vines while demons danced and played flutes around him. He watched as a much younger god beat a younger goddess into submission, with the snakes and vines ensnaring her divine corpse. Then there was the smile, that hideous smile of the Goddess. Her eyes were pinpricks, black holes, while her gaping fanged maw seemed to stretch the length of that stygian grotto. And from her head came forth tentacles and vines as hair.

I asked the man how much further, and he said that we were close, we just had to head up. But it was then that I stopped him and demanded to know by what means did he come about this knowledge. He smiled and removed his hat. In the darkness, I could see that he was wearing a religious symbol around his neck- the symbol of the Goddess. His cheeks has slits in them out of which came thin, worm-like feelers. I recognized him instantly as an Anzat vampire, and at once I could feel the Force growing strong in him.

He waved his hand and I was back, back in time. I saw a great ceremony, a feast in the central hall of the Neo-Dea temple, with a series of large bonfires around the edges. A woman clad entirely in black stood over the living body of a Jedi Knight. She reached down and gouged out the Jedi's heart and turned around. The body somehow still had life in it when it was swarmed by rabid and almost naked cultists, many of whom were Anzat vampires, but many more were human. The woman had eyes as black as space and ash white hair. When she opened her mouth, I could tell that whatever this fiend was, it was not human, for its teeth were elongated and its tongue serpentine. It ripped apart the still moving flesh of the Jedi, but at that moment, the hallway that we had come in from was lit up by lightsaber light. Jedi Knights saw the horror and gore as the body of one of their own was defiled and cannibalized, and they struck out in wrath. Their lightsabers cut down many cultists, but there were too many of them and several Jedi fell. One brave Knight managed to make it up to the monstrous woman, and he was then blasted with lightning and fell as a charred corpse at her feet. The monster smiled, an evil toothy grin that seemed to stretch across the entire galaxy, and the vision faded. I was back in the same room, just a thousand years later with only dust and bones and lightsaber hilts on the floor.

I found the Anzat vampire standing over me, his feeding tendrils about to enter my nose. I reached for my weapon, and in a miracle worthy of being in any sacred text, I was able to slay this creature. I ran. I ran up through the caves, higher and higher, until at last I emerged on top of a mountain strong in the Force with the night sky above me. I don't remember much else, but my master claims to have found me crying and ranting like a madman upon that mountain.

I don't know what happened to the caverns or to the corpse that I left behind, but I hope that they were destroyed. A Jedi shrine was later built upon that Force-rich mountain, as it was the best place to locate one, despite my rabid protests and raves against it. But they didn't listen. They claimed that what I had witnessed was not real. But what am I to expect? The Jedi lied and covered up the events a thousand years ago. They did not give the bones a proper burial, but just left them, telling everyone that their brothers and sisters were missing in action while their flesh rotted in that horrible cavern. The Jedi purged all mentions of their actions against said cult and against its leader, and they built a shrine to cover it's dark side signature up. Why? Why would this conspiracy even exist? But I know, and I hope one day the secret will be exposed.

* * *

 _ **Author's Note: This was my first attempt of writing in the style of HP Lovecraft. Specifically, this story is based heavily on his short stories He, The Festival, and The Rats in the Walls. I may attempt to do more shorts like this. Also, this story shares many themes introduced in some of my previous fan works, mainly Look on My Works and The Young Grand Master which I will update... hopefully soon. **_

_**P.S. If anyone wants to write like Lovecraft, all you have to do is 1) make a protagonist who is slightly insane, 2) make your sentences as verbose as possible, and 3) use the 'cyclopean' as much as physically possible.**_


End file.
